


What Is This Feeling?

by EchoShimmer



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Damian Wayne is Robin, Damian Wayne-centric, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Tim Drake Birthday Hunt, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Tim Drake takes a nap, but he's learning!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25385401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoShimmer/pseuds/EchoShimmer
Summary: Tim takes a much needed nap and Damian has an unexpected realization.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Damian Wayne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 239





	What Is This Feeling?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meaninglessblah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meaninglessblah/gifts).



> Hello! This work was written in honor of our beloved Tim Drake's birthday! It was part of a work exchange hosted on the Capes & Coffee Discord server, and I was chosen to write for the lovely meaninglessblah! DamiTim isn't typically my go-to ship, but this was still extremely fun to write. I hope you all enjoy reading it as well :)
> 
> \---
> 
> Title comes from the song "What Is This Feeling" from the Wicked musical. It's a very fitting DamiTim song, no?

Damian made his way out of the showers and into the cave proper, still rubbing at his hair with a bath towel as he went. Patrol that evening had been incredibly satisfying. Father had decided that, at nearly sixteen, Robin was finally old enough and could be trusted enough to start occasionally patrolling by himself. He was even occasionally allowed to take on his own cases, as long as there were no rumors of Rogues being involved.

That night’s patrol had been one of his solo days, and everything had unfolded perfectly. Robin had stopped no less than four attempted assaults, two attempted drug exchanges, and a kidnapping attempt on one of the Crowne’s young heiresses who had wandered into the bad part of town. Not only that, but Damian had finished off the night by managing to sneak into a warehouse owned by a suspected drug smuggler and place bugs down so that the Bat’s could get proof of illegal activity. 

Father, who had returned half an hour before Damian, was pleased with Damian’s report of the night's success. He had turned his attention away from updating some files on the Batcomputer to lay a hand on Damian’s shoulder and tell him, “Good job, Robin,” and Grayson had popped up out of nowhere to drag his younger brother into a hug, ignoring the slight awkwardness of the exchange now that Damian was quickly catching up to his older sibling in height. From a distance, Todd had laughed at Damian’s attempt at a disgruntled expression while Cain and Brown simply exchanged smiles and knowing looks. 

Damian’s halfhearted threats of revenge had been insufficient to convince his older brother to release his hold, and eventually the younger boy had been forced to accept the embrace. Grayson found way too much amusement in smothering his younger siblings whenever given the chance despite the fact that none of them preferred such shows of affection. Damian never missed the opportunity to complain when he was chosen as a recipient for such treatment. But internally, deep down, Damian was rather pleased that after all these years, and despite the fact that Damian had grown exponentially both physically and mentally, Grayson still regularly sought out Damian for this sort of brotherly bonding.

Even after living with his father's side of the family for around five years, the small shows of affection from his normally taciturn father and comparatively clingy brothers and sisters never ceased to fill Damian’s chest with an unexpected warmth.

Eventually, Damian had managed to convince Grayson that he needed to be released for a shower. The teen’s retreat into the locker room was accompanied by a squawk and following threats from Todd, no doubt a sign that Grayson had turned his pent-up affectionate energy towards the second Robin. Damian smiled to himself in private before retreating further to reach the showers.

When Damian emerged once again into the cave proper, the cavern was comparatively quiet. The typical quiet hum of various machines and distant squeaking of bats only accentuated the fact that the rest of the family had moved on. 

A quick glance towards the vehicle bay confirmed that Todd had chosen to head home for the night, and the continued presence of Brown’s bike indicated that she had declared the night a good one for a sleepover with Cain and Drake. Drake’s bike had also made its way back sometime in the last half an hour, Red Robin having finally finished up from his night dealing with a couple gangs causing trouble on the far side of Gotham.

Damian relaxed into the quiet privacy, a rare occurrence in a house as full as Wayne Manor. Between the number of people that passed through the halls during the day, and the general neverending activity around the families day-and-night lives, there was rarely a dull moment anymore. The chaotic environment was one that clashed greatly with Damian’s childhood of discipline and order, but he couldn’t say that he hated the change.

Not that he would admit to anyone that he was so happy here. His siblings would all be insufferable.

In the doorway that separated the cave proper from the locker rooms, Damian paused to give his hair one last thorough scrub before throwing the towel into the proper laundry bin, intent on heading upstairs to see which of his siblings were still awake at this hour. It was very possible that the weekend sleepover had evolved into an impromptu movie night, and if that was the case Damian was loath to miss out on Pennyworth’s popcorn and rootbeer floats.

The satisfying thud of the towel hitting the bottom of the laundry bin when Damian threw it was expected. The muffled groan emanating from the computer bay, however, was not.

Damian’s head snapped around in response to the unexpected sound. After a moment of assessment, he allowed his tense muscles to relax once again, satisfied that there wasn’t a threat.

His situational awareness could, evidently, still use some work though, since apparently Damian wasn’t the only Bat still in the cave— even if he was the only conscious one.

Drake was slumped over in front of the main screen of the Batcomputer, dead to the world as only the chronically sleep deprived could be. He had apparently stripped down to his bodysuit before sitting down to update his files for the night, the black material serving to blend in to the leather of the computer chair in which he now slept. The color had likely served as camouflage for the young adult when Damian had performed his initial study of the room.

It was rare, these days, to catch Drake asleep like this. When feeling particularly sentimental, Grayson, Pennyworth, and Father would occasionally share tidbits of information about the past shenanigans that had occurred in the Manor. A couple of times there had been mentions of a teenage Drake’s tendency to fall asleep in increasingly odd places during his Robin years, his body’s way of making up for the hours of sleep lost during patrol. 

It was a trait that had supposedly disappeared with age, and also perhaps due to the change in circumstances overtime. These days Drake could and regularly did go days without sleep before it started to severely impact his performance, a skill no doubt gained through trial by fire. When he was finally forced to sleep, by either his body or a particularly pushy family member, Drake often retreated to his apartment or, as was increasingly frequent, locking himself in his room upstairs. On looking back, Damian couldn’t recall any time recently where he had caught the former Robin asleep out in the open like this.

Curiosity bled into Damian’s mind, and the urge drove him silently forward to analyze his predecessor at his most vulnerable. The teen paused his approach with a few feet still between him and the elder Wayne, all to aware that going any closer would no doubt wake the boy. No one in the family was a particularly deep sleeper, no matter how sleep deprived they might be at the time.

Drake’s face, when relaxed in sleep, appeared surprisingly youthful. While the twenty year old always had a rather young appearance, sleep seemed to erase that air of serious professionalism he always maintained, making him appear even younger. His dark hair, still slightly ruffled from the Red Robin cowl and sleep, only added to that perception.

Damian’s eyes trailed, unbidden, down the rest of Drake’s body. Without the majority of the Red Robin armor, the undersuit only served to emphasize how small and compact Drake’s body was. Unlike Todd and Father and Damian himself, Drake’s body lended itself towards lean muscle. He would never be the powerhouse that the majority of the family tended towards, or have the fluidity of Grayson or Cain’s movements, but Drake’s analytical mind and meticulously controlled movement made him a dangerous opponent. When given the opportunity to plan his strikes, Drake was all but guaranteed to win, and for him his shorter stature was an advantage rather than a hindrance, using his preferred weapon as no other could to take down challenger after challenger. He rarely lost a fight.

Many had remarked before that they were lucky that Drake worked on the side of good. If given the inclination, there is no doubt that Drake could be a very dangerous enemy.

Unobserved and lost in thought, Damian’s eyes trailed over that slim, deceptively harmless body, gaze settling on the intelligent, pale, nimble fingers that now rested laxly over the keyboard. The thought settled into Damian’s mind unbidden, the consensus of his thought’s snapping into place before Damian could process how he had come to that conclusion.

_ Beautiful. _

The internal declaration was followed by a flood of shock, and Damian was physically forced to take a step away from the other boy at the sudden revelation. This… this was not an issue that he currently knew how to address. Drake, beautiful? Sure, he could acknowledge alongside everyone else that his family was, overall, very good looking. There were plenty of news articles and web pages out there dedicated to this fact, and the combination of wealth and appearance meant that the family as a whole tended to draw the eyes of the public in a way that very few people did.

But was there really something about Drake in particular that Damian’s newly-minted teenage hormones could be attracted to, at least on the physical level? The newly acknowledged tug somewhere in Damian’s chest seemed to indicate that the answer was a yes.

Luckily for Damian’s spiraling thoughts, his sudden, jolting step backwards had made an abnormal amount of noise. (And Damian might have squeaked a bit, not that anyone would ever be able to prove it.) Either way, the result was the same.

Drake snapped back awake with a twitch of his fingers and a small twist to his mouth, the only warnings before his blue-grey eyes snapped open and his body jolted awake in surprise at the sudden sound. The computer chair was thrown backwards a few feet on complaining wheels as Drake threw himself upright and into a defensive crouch. Damian quickly schooled his face from surprise into his typical indifference, internally praying that Drake hadn’t caught the moment of vulnerability.

For a few tense moments the two young vigilantes stared at each other, neither moving a muscle as the series of events processed and the spike of adrenaline calmed. Damian noted faintly, through the haze of panic, that the relaxed innocence that he had observed from Drake in sleep had already vanished. 

Drake was the first to break the moment, relaxing his stance and straightening up again with a huff as he ran a hand through his ruffled hair, the smallest sign of embarrassment.

“Sorry, Damian. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Did I scare you?” 

Damian’s mind scrambled to form a fitting reply around the renewed realization that Drake was now solidly a couple of inches shorter than him, desperate to not give away any indication of where his thoughts kept straying. After a moment of struggle, the indifferent mask finally settled back over his thoughts, calming his panicked heartbeat.

“Tt, of course not, Drake. I was simply surprised that you actually woke up, as sleep deprived as you typically are.”

There was a moment of pause where Drake’s analytical gaze studied the younger’s face for any indication that his words were a ruse. Damian internally prayed that his hesitation in response hadn’t given anything away. But Drake simply nodded, and Damian let the knot of tension in his chest ease.

“If you say so. In any case, we should probably head up to the main lounge, everyone who’s staying tonight decided that such a successful week should be celebrated with movies and junk food. I was finishing up reports still so I offered to wait and tell you. Didn’t expect that I’d fall asleep while I was waiting.”

Damian nodded in response, pleased that things were once again proceeding as expected. Later, when he had time to run through this interaction in the privacy of his room, Damian’s mind would run circles around the implication that Drake had  _ chosen _ to be the one to wait for him. But now was not the time for such thoughts.

“We had better go up and join them, then,” was all Damian said instead.

Drake nodded, quickly closing digital files, shutting down the computer, and moving smoothly to retrieve the displaced chair and return it to its place at the keyboard. Damian carefully pulled his eyes away from the skin tight fabric as it stretched over Drake’s lithe muscle at the movement.

Initial tasks completed, Drake glanced down at the remainder of his uniform and shot Damian a wry grin.

“I’d better change out of this if I don’t want Alfred giving me disappointed looks all weekend. You should head up without me, I’ll follow in a few minutes.”

“Of course,” Damian nodded, carefully stepping around his predecessor to stalk towards the stairs, consciously forcing himself to not exit too quickly or glance back over his shoulder. “See that you do your best to be punctual, Drake. We will not be waiting for you just because you went and fell asleep on the job.”

The huff of air that was barely audible from the other end of the Cave was only two steps below a laugh. Drake’s parting remark came just as Damian’s foot settled onto the first step, echoing through Damian’s mind for minutes afterwards until it was shoved into a box at the onset of his other siblings’ antics.

“I would expect nothing less, Damian.”


End file.
